Poetry: "Beyond Their Lofty Height" - Earlier Composition

The people sit, lining rows of machine-stitched upholstery,

Staring out of their soaring metallic chamber,

Fighting the warped sunlight’s glare off steely wings.

Do they see beyond their own lofty height,

To the vast icecap of cloud, the scattered birds,

Sliding effortlessly along the endless white,

Before diving through unseen gaps,

Into the heavy darkness below?

Can they still see, through the water-marked portholes,

Sullied by the rainbowed bubbles of cleansing chemicals

Whose colors swirl in sickly imitation

of that frozen cloudscape’s brilliant arch,

the doorway to a paradise unseen, ignored.